Two Casascius physical coins dormant for 13 years suddenly moved, with 2,000 BTC transferred

BlockBeats News, December 7, according to CoinDesk, a wallet address associated with Casascius physical bitcoin, which had been dormant for over 13 years, recently transferred 2,000 BTC (approximately $180 million). These BTC had not moved since 2011–2012, when the price of bitcoin was less than $15 each.

Background on Casascius physical coins: Launched in 2011 by American entrepreneur Mike Caldwell, these coins embed a private key and are sealed with a tamper-evident hologram, serving as offline cold storage. Denominations range from 1 BTC to 1,000 BTC. In 2013, issuance was forced to stop after FinCEN classified it as an “unregistered money transmission business.”

There are still about 90,000 coins in circulation, but most are of small denominations; only 6 coins and 16 bars contain 1,000 BTC each. It is currently unclear whether this transfer was a sale, an internal restructuring, or simply for security reasons (such as concerns over the aging of physical materials).

Earlier this year, a user holding a 100 BTC Casascius bar also had to move approximately $9 million in funds to a hardware wallet because it was difficult to import the private key into modern wallets.